The Dirty Secret of Email Service Providers and Internet Service Providers
There’s a dirty secret in the email marketing industry. It’s the elephant in the room that no one talks about. No one can talk about it for fear of retribution by the very people who are supposed to be policing our inboxes.
SPAM HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PERMISSION
That’s right. You heard it right here. I’ll repeat it…
SPAM HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PERMISSION
One more time…
SPAM HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PERMISSION
But Douglas… what are you saying? That’s terrible! That defies what the entire industry tells us. It defies what ISPs tell us. It defies what ESPs tell us. It even defies what we know about SPAM.
The truth is that SPAM is not an unsolicited email. SPAM is not an email that is sent without permission. What SPAM is is unwanted email. UNWANTED.
Today, I can sign up for an email from a reputable source called MyCo. I provide them my permission to send me emails as often as they would like, even allowing them in fine print, to send me offers on behalf of companies they ‘do business with’.
- MyCo sends me a double opt-in email that I must confirm before receiving any marketing emails from them.
- MyCo provides its company address in every email per CAN-SPAM regulations.
- MyCo regularly purges its list of email subscribers who are not engaged.
- MyCo has a feedback loop that automatically unsubscribes people who reply and ask to be removed from their list.
- MyCo prominently displays an unsubscribe link in the email and even captures the reason why people are unsubscribing.
- MyCo has all the necessary email authentication standards implemented.
- MyCo has a site that’s fully secure and always uses secure links for its subscribers.
- MyCo applies to be whitelisted with every Internet Service Provider (that offers).
- MyCo even enlists deliverability consultants and monitors inbox placement.
- MyCo validates the content in every email it sends to ensure there are no words that might get it flagged as spam.
After I receive 6 months of MyCo’s email, I grow weary of the email and hit the Junk button to get rid of it.
Guess what?!
MyCo, the reputable email sender just became a SPAMMER. Permission-based, double-optin, CAN-SPAM compliant, 1-click unsubscribe… they did everything right, but now they are a SPAMMER.
As a SPAMMER, they are blacklisted. Their IP address is now flagged. Their other clients who want the email don’t see it because the ISP routes all of them into the junk folder. Their reputation is ruined. Perhaps they will switch to a new ESP. Maybe they switch to a new IP address. They have to do something since their email can’t reach the inbox. Perhaps they even go out of business.
Their crime? A weak, UNWANTED, message.
Who’s to blame for this? MyCo? The subscriber?
Neither.
Who is to blame? The ISP is. They are to blame because they have failed to protect us against real SPAM. They utilize flawed reputation systems; they don’t share data, and they don’t provide tools for reputable sources to become good stewards. Instead, they ignore the billions and billions of emails sent by the real SPAMMERS who don’t follow the rules, don’t care about reputation, don’t care about permission, cycle their IP Addresses, and bypass all of the checks and balances that reputable marketers utilize.
It’s a lot like the Drug-Free Signs at the local High School. The only people that are Drug-Free are the people who are already Drug-Free. The drug dealers still walk the sidewalks and hallways, laughing at the signs as they pass them.
I spoke about permission earlier. The problem with permission is that there is no system for ISPs to ensure that you provided permission. ESPs require permission as a stop-gap against poor deliverability and junk email reporting. However, the ISP and ESP NEVER share the process of permission.
Someone needs to begin asking why. Someone needs to answer for the billions of SPAM messages that flow right through while the valid emails can’t get through and businesses suffer. The ISPs go on and on about permission, permission, permission.
They don’t care about permission… they only care about how many people click that junk email button. That’s all they have to work with. As a marketer, put out a bad email message to your subscribers, and watch out! You’ll be blocked and labeled a SPAMMER in no time.
What ISPs should be doing to fight real SPAM
- Provide Opt-In APIs for any Email Service Provider or Advertiser who wishes to send email responsibly.
- Share Opt-In data with other ISPs to ensure responsible marketers aren’t penalized.
- Stop SPAMMERS from using ISPs to send emails! Did you know that the United States is the worst SPAMMER? Are you telling me we can find a child pornographer in hours but SPAMMERS can operate for years? You’re telling me that monitoring hardware can’t see and stop this incredible volume of traffic?
- If I allowed people to transport drugs in my car, I’d be in jail. How come the ISPs that transport SPAM aren’t being held accountable?
- Provide a means for emails to be GUARANTEED delivery to the Inbox. Email is no longer a secondary means of communication. I get credit alerts and banking alerts in my inbox. It’s unconscionable that these emails would ever wind up in a Junk Email folder.
If UPS, FedEx and the USPS stopped showing up to your warehouse to ship out your products, you’d be suing them. Someone is going to sue an ISP soon for not delivering email that was permission-based and followed every rule. These companies need to be held accountable for this mess they got us into and refuse to get us out of.
